Spider-Man: Lost In The Dark
by ThanosOfTitan2468
Summary: A darker retelling of Spiderman and an insight to his days of a vigilante before he becomes the hero we know and love. Rated T for violence and language.


**Hope you find this enjoyable. I do not own any of the Marvel characters that may appear in this story.**

The old woman sat weeping quietly and lonely upon her leather sofa, which once she had shared. She sobbed and sniffed in a quiet way, wiping the tears away with her white handkerchief. But no matter how many tears she wiped away, more would always follow.

All of a sudden the phone began to ring from across the room and a brief feeling of fear spiked inside her, but she managed to calm herself fairly quickly. She slowly stood up and began to step towards the phone, wiping away the last of her tears and fighting for her dignity back before she answered it.

"Is this May Parker?" It was a kind female voice.

"Yes," May paused. Her voice was rough and un stable. She took a deep breath and pulled the phone away from her mouth to cough, before resuming the conversation. "Who is it?"

"This is Midtown High," The woman replied. "you're nephew, Peter, has failed to attend registration today, have you authorised his absence?"

May's heart sank and she rested her head in her hand. Once again she drew another deep breath.

"Yes, yes I have. I do apologise, I must have-must have forgotten to call."

"That's okay Mrs Parker," As the woman spoke, a tear rolled down May's eye as she heard the words '_Mrs Parker_'. "why is it that Peter is absent?"

"Sickness, he's just a little-" May searched for excuses she could give, but couldn't muster up anything. "he's just a little worn out. There have been some family issues and it's really effecting him. I'll have him back in by tomorrow."

"Okay, Mrs Parker," The woman said. "but we do ask the Peter attends as often as he can as he has important exams coming up soon, and he is expected to achieve his high targets."  
"Of course, I'll work him back up and I'll-" May paused again for a second and let out a quiet sigh. "I'll ensure work is sent home for Peter if he misses too much school in the future."

"Okay, thank you Mrs Parker."

"Thank you, dear. Goodbye."

With that the phone was hung up and for a couple of seconds, May just stood still. She wish she could now call up stairs to Peter and tell him he had to attend school tomorrow, but she knew she couldn't. Peter wasn't here.

-Elsewhere-

Peter Parker, Spider Man, stood tall on the edge of the giant glass skyscraper and stared down at the city below; New York. This was the young vigilante, dressed in a red balaclava with poorly drawn black lines, spiralling around his face, painted over it. He wore a pair of sun glasses to cover his eyes and an old woolly hat over his head, to keep the mask on when he was on the move. Underneath his dark trench coat was a dark red hoodie, with a small spider on the top left of it, just below his collar, with a backpack slung over his shoulders. He also wore a pair of gloves that were red on the outside, but the palms were blue and white. Other than that he wore a pair of blue jeans and a standard pair of trainers.

A young vigilante. A young vigilante on a mission.

He heard a sudden '_bing_' and recognised it as his text message notification. He swung his back down beside him and pulled his phone out of it. He scrolled down, reading out the long list of notifications in his mind.

"_Missed call from Harry, two messages off Gwen, a message from Eddie. Oh. Missed call from Aunt May…"_

He was one second away from tapping the screen and returning the call, but stopped himself. He couldn't bare to talk to her now. The school had obviously phoned, concerned for his absence today and she had found out. But now was hardly the time for distractions, now was the time for him to be focussed. Today he was going to do a lot of good on behalf of himself and Aunt May. He quickly put the phone on silent and shoved it into his bag, before he started to change his mind.

Next he pulled out a poster. An artists drawing. A representation. A horrid mans face haunted the picture. Short dark hair, a scar on the right side of his face that ran from his chin to his ear and an array of spots covering his forehead. Given to him by a police officer, this was Peters best way of finding where the man would be. It would be Spider Man's best way of finding where he would be. Devin Nyle.

The mans last crime, murder, was committed in Queens so there was no way he'd still be hanging around there. But Peter bet he wouldn't wonder to far. Having seen him once before, he struck Peter as a man who thought he could out smart everyone. He probably thought that if he ran as far as he could from the scene of the crime, the police would expect it and catch him easy. Taking a wild guess, Peter guessed he was hanging around just outside of Queens. But that was just a guess.

Peter placed the poster back in his back pack and slung the bag over his shoulders again. Time to go fishing. Either that or hunting.

He took a few seconds to balance himself of the edge of the roof and took and a deep breath… Before dropping. Even through the balaclava he could feel the rush of wind against his face and he could sense the trench coat waving about behind him, like a cape. About halfway down he threw his arm out a fired a web line. He gripped onto it tightly and his body violently changed directions as he swung down wards. His arms and legs bashed roughly against the windows the building as he came to the top of his swing. Then he kicked off with his feet and managed to leap some distance off of his web line, but had misjudged his movements. His body twisted and turned in mid air as he began to fall further, out of control. He couldn't see anything, just a spiral of blue and grey. Hoping for the best, he fired out another web line, which connected to a building in front of him. Preparing himself for pain, Peter curled his body into a ball in the air, as he crashed into the brick was and tumbled down.

With a painful crack and thud he crash landed onto the rooftop of another smaller building, narrowly avoiding the skylight and falling through that too. Peter swore that this swinging thing would have to work out for him eventually. He'd been practicing it loads, but could never seem to aim his webs accurately or control his descents. It really bugged him. But for now he could think about it and free running would have to do, a skill he had almost mastered.

Peter stood up, he felt rough and un-nerved, but the pain was minimal. Although the right side of his body ached and his back felt crooked, there was very little pain that could put him off his goal. A trait Peter had come to like; resilience.

Suddenly Peter's mind was drawn away again. His senses suddenly peaked and his muscle tensed without him telling them too, as an echoing noise soared through his head. Danger. Danger below. It could be Devin. Peter ran over to the edge of the small building and took a look down. Past the fire escape men in grey hoodies, exchanging a single revolver with a pack of drugs behind them, stood in a circle. There were three of them, the third man now held the gun and was loading it, his face shadowed by his hood. For a second Peter almost ignored them, but the other two pulled out knives and began examining them and speaking amongst themselves.

Peter realised he couldn't ignored them. What if one of them was Devin Nyle? What if one of them hurt someone? Peter had already cursed himself for allowing it to happen once, and had promised himself he wouldn't let it happen again. But were these men guilty of anything yet? Peter could only assume. He'd ever stop them from doing something, or punish them for what had already happened.

Peter dropped down from the building, a fall he could easily withstand, and landing upon a dirty dumpster behind them with a bang.

"Hey!" He called, but the men ignored him. The third man was still examining the gun, while shoving the drugs into his pockets, while the others talked to each other, looking at their knives. "Hey!" Peter called again.

The man with the gun turned around. "The hell are you? You high or somthin'? You dressed like that for a reason?"

Peter ignored his question and asked one of his own. "When was the last time you were in Queens."

The man with the gun squinted his eyes, confused, and the two others stood either side of him.

"Answer the question man." Peter said, hopping down from the dumpster, trying to get a look under the hoods the men wore.

"What? What you doin' man?" The man seemed confused.

"You hurt anyone recently, only a particular type of person gets together with his buddies in an alley to exchange weapons." Peter advanced on them.

"Woah, woah, man," One of the others raised a hand to Peter. "stay right there, we ain't done nothing'."

"Never said you had, why you so defensive all of a sudden? You must have hurt someone recently, huh?" Peter was close to them now.

"Step back man, we don't want no trouble."

"Neither did I," Peter said, readying himself. "but you bought it on yourself."

Peter bought his fist up with speed and popped the man with the gun twice in the face, and kicked him away.

"Shit!" Another said, charging Peter. But the charge was unsuccessful, Peter side stepped and tossed him to one side, before throwing a punch at the gunman again. The second knifeman began swinging and jabbing his knife at Peter. None of the hits landed, but as Peter dodged each attack, he found himself being driven back. He was driven back to far. The other knife man grabbed Peter round the waist and cut through his trench coat with his knife, narrowly missing Peters skin.

'_Get out now!_'' Peter raised his legs and kicked off the man in front of him, performing a backwards roll over the top of the man who had grabbed him, and breaking free of his grip. The knifeman turned though, swinging his knife, but Peter caught his arm and smashed his fist into the mans elbow. With a cry of pain, the man fell to the ground and scurried away from Peter, his cradling his arm.

Bang. Spider sense. Peter jumped backwards, not even knowing were the danger was coming from, and narrowly dodged a bullet that flew past him. The gunman had shot and he was going to shoot again, but the second knifeman blocked his shot and began swinging his knife at Peter. Quickly, although not cleanly, Peter was able to block the blows the man was throwing, although the knife was cutting through his coat and skin every now and again, lightly. Eventually the knifeman got in a good blow and, as he swung with his knife, he created a large gash up Peters arm.

Peter let out a short cry as the stinging pain ran thorough his entire arm, allowing the knifeman to land a solid blow to Peters nose and knock him down. The knifeman raised an arm, about to bring the knife down, but Peter fired a bolt of webbing that slammed into the mans face and covered his eyes, stretching the skin on his face. With both feet now, Peter kicked upwards with all his strength and the man went flying, bouncing off the dumpster and rolling into a puddle.

Bang. Another bullet spun by Peter, as he leapt up and began swiftly crawling across the wall. Bang. Peter jumped across to the wall opposite, dodging the bullet again. A final bang. Peter forward flipped off the wall, the bullet missed and pounded into the brick wall, before firing a line of web onto the revolver and pulling it from the mans hand and into his own. The gunman's eyes widened in fear of being shot, but Peter instead threw the gun back at him and watched as it crashed into his face and send blood flying off of his face.

Peter stood still. He had won. But it didn't seem right. Were these guilty men? Were any of them Devin Nyle? He advanced on the weeping gunman and turned him over.

"No! Please!" The gunman pleaded, desperately. "Don't hurt me! Don't, please!."

Peter delivered a final blow to his already broken nose, and stood himself back up. He didn't know how to react. He didn't react, not yet. Instead he moved over to the next man, who was curled into a ball against one of the walls. He was conscious, but said nothing as he contorted his face and tried to control his pain. This man recognised he wasn't Devin, but did recognise the mans twisted arm. It was bent the wrong way and looked dislocated, but the truth was it was broken.

"Leave!" He exclaimed.

Peter moved away from him and paused. He turned and looked to the exit of the alley. A woman stood staring down it, her mouth was wide and she was reaching for her phone. She would, no doubt, call the police.

Peter moved to the final man, who was slouched over by the dumpster. God, he hoped it was Devin. He raised the mans dangling head and looked at his face. Quickly he drew away, seeing the vomit he had bought up after Peter had attacked his stomach with his feet.

Guilt. More guilt. It all pilled up inside Peter and he felt like it was caving in on him, from the inside. These were no killers. They were certainly not guilty of much. Peter tried to raise his spirits by telling himself they were exchanging drugs, but it still didn't seem right. Maybe they had no intention of using these weapons. Just maybe. He never should have come here. He never should have fought any of them.

Sirens. Spider sense. Peter turned to the woman at the end of the alley, half hiding behind a post box with a phone in her hand, pointing at Peter for another stranger. He had to leave.

Quickly he fired a web line up to the fire escape and pulled himself up, before scurrying away onto the rooftops and making a cowardly escape. He leapt from rooftop to rooftop until he was at least three blocks away from the scene. Nothing felt right.

-**6pm, The Parker House**-

May Parker sat in worry as she had all day, allowing her mind to wonder and to find a solution to where Peter was. She pulled out her new phone, the first touch screen device she had used, and swiped through the messages. She didn't really see the point in these devices, she preferred the older and more classic house phones. But she was thankful she could send texts on this thing, although it took her forever to type.

She opened the messages. She had sent a multitude of messages out to Peter; '_Where are you, Peter?' , 'Call me, please'_, and many more. Not once had she received a response, but after every message she sent there was always a small message in the bottom right corner, acknowledging Peter had seen her attempts to contact him.

He had also missed four calls off of her throughout the day. All May wanted was for Peter to go to school and then come home everyday so that they might seem like a normal family again, even if they were missing someone. At the same time, however, she didn't want him to come home. She didn't know what she would say to him when he finally did.

Once again the phone began to ring and May stood up quickly and hurried to it, hoping to hear Peter's voice over the line.

"Hello?"

"Oh, hello Mrs Parker," Again the word '_Mrs'_ struck her. "it's Harry, is Peter there?"

"I'm afraid not, Harry, he just-" She paused and tried to find an excuse for his absence again. "he just popped to the shop for me to fetch some eggs. I wasn't prepared to let him lounge around all day because of a stomach bug."

"Well, ur, I tried calling him earlier, but he doesn't seem to be answering his phone. Could you ask him to call me when he gets home again?"

"Of course, Harry."  
"Okay, thank you, Mrs Parker."

"You're welcome, Harry, goodbye."

Then the phone was put down. May stood still again and stared out the window. The sky was orange and the sun was setting. Where was Peter?

-**9pm, Queens**-

No luck, Peter couldn't believe it. Searching all day and Peter couldn't find a single trace of Devin Nyle. Unbelievable. Peter jumped across the gaps between buildings through Queens, slowly making his way home. Suddenly, in mid air, his senses peaked again and time, seemingly, slowed down as Peter detected danger. Spider sense. Peter debated looking the other way on account of what had happened in the alley, but knew he couldn't as he could be missing out on Devin Nyle.

Peter moved to the edge of the building he was on and could hear sirens ringing from afar, but could see nothing on the streets. But, only seconds later, a man carrying a bag of cash, came running round the corner and hesitated before hiding against the wall of a building as a slow moving police car passed by.

Peter couldn't make out the mans face, he need a closer look. After a short run up, Peter leapt off of the room of the building and across the road, landing perched on the wall of the much taller building opposite. He began crawling sideways across the wall, his trench coat making it difficult for him to move as if flopped down over his leg and exposed his back. His head spun as he saw everything from this vertical angle, as he was still getting used to how his abilities worked.

Finally he was close enough and found himself to be very lucky. The swine that was Devin Nyle slipped himself into a foolishly unlocked car, then began to hot wire it. Peter hesitated, scared. This man had killed the closest person to Peter, it wasn't hard to think that this man could kill him too. But it was a risk he'd have to take.

Suddenly the cars engine burst to life and it began to speed away. Peter had to keep up. He fired a web line to the top of the building and pulled himself up onto the rooftop. Watching the car like a hawk as he did so, Peter jumped form roof to roof in pursuit of the vehicle. But this would get him know where, he'd have to stop the car and catch Devin. Now Peter was sprinting and leaping, pulling himself with his webs to increase his speed. The car turned left and now was directly below Peter, and Peter took his opportunity.

He dived down and flipped in hid air, crashing onto the car with great force, the windscreen smashed into pieces as he hit the car roof. Without a second of build up and after a panicked scream, from inside the car, the car began to speed up rapidly. Quickly it went from moving forty miles per hour to almost sixty on the tight streets, where traffic still travelled.

"What the-" A panicked voice came from inside the car as Peter threw his fist through the windscreen and grabbed the steering wheel. He attempted to re direct the car away from the traffic and cause it to crash, but he couldn't, his arm was at a terrible angle.

Peter pulled his arm away as a blunt metal object began thumping against his hand. All of a sudden bullets came flying out of the car and through the roof at Peter. Peter dodged one and then two, but his spider sense warned him the next bullet would be fatal. What choice did Peter have, where could he go? What could he do? In a split second before the next bullet fired, Peter found the solution and took the risk.

He threw himself up into the air and off of the car, allowing it to get slightly ahead of him. Peter began to fall, but before he allowed himself to hit the ground, he span a web line and swung off of it and through the air.

Inside the car, Devin glanced through the mirrors on the car.

"Shit!" He exclaimed, having not seen what had been attacking him until now.

Devin slammed his foot on the accelerator and began to speed up, winding in and out of the traffic.

Peter wasn't far behind. Peter did not jump off of each web line once at the top of his swing, if he did so he would find himself too far ahead of the car and would lose it. Instead he just fired another line of web and switched from his old line to his new one, which he found made it much easier to swing. However Peter knew he couldn't stop Devin from up here, he'd have to get close. He'd have to use the traffic to his advantage.

Peter took a large jump off of his web line and landed on top of a pick up truck, which almost swerved out of control as Peter made contact with it. However this didn't bother Peter and, without hesitating, Peter used his webs to pull himself onto near by cars and trucks, using them as stepping stones to get closer to Devin.

Out of no where, sirens began to sound and behind Peter were two police cars that struggled to fight through the traffic. Peter had to hurry this up. He took a giant leap in the air and glided for a short moment above the traffic. Before falling, Peter targeted the speeding car, being driven by Devin, and fired two web lines onto it. Using the webs, he pulled himself down back onto the car roof with colossal force.

Upon impact the back window shattered and the roof partly caved in on the back seats. Devin panicked and partly lost control of the car. The car swerved and the headlights smashed as he ricocheted off of two cars either side of him, before regaining control. Once again he pulled out his gun and began firing through the roof of the car, but Peter was ready for this. Swiftly, Peter hopped sideways over the roof and landed on the cars bonnet, staring the murderer in the eyes through the broken wind screen.

Devin raised his gun. Peter raised his hand. Devin fired a single shot, but Peter fired a web first. With a bolt of webbing over his face, Devin was blind and was driving aimlessly forwards. Without seeing any of it, Devin broke free of the traffic and charged forwards through an empty alley, knocking down several trash cans as he did so and then swerved off road, over grass and mud , and slammed clean through a large metal gate.

Screaming hopelessly, though the car had stopped, Devin finally ripped the webbing from his face and began panting. He rushed out of the car window and hit the ground roughly, his hands bleeding from contact with the broken glass and sharp metal. He saw the car in ruins. The back seats were no longer visible as they were covered by the roof, which had almost completely caved in. Every window was smashed and one of the headlights was flickering on and off, whereas the other was no longer on at all.

But that wasn't important. Devin looked around everywhere. No sign of him. Where had he gone? The masked man was gone for now. The sound of sirens in the distance, however, got Devin back on his feet. He turned to the large warehouse behind him, which had been guarded by the gate he'd smashed, and began sprinting for it.

He kicked down the door, gripping his pistol tightly, and rushed up the stairs that was infested with dust and cobwebs. All the power was out and no one was there, shadows haunted the whole building and empty boxes lay open everywhere. Devin came out of the stair case and ran through the open area of shelves and boxes, across the creaky wooden floorboards. He came to a set of two large metal doors and pushed through them, before slamming them shut behind him, making sure the masked man was no longer behind him.

Good, he wasn't. He was alone. Or was he? From the ceiling behind him, the masked one dropped down. His trench coat torn and his sunglasses partly smashed, with dust and dirt covering his red hoodie. Devin bought up his pistol, but the masked man pulled the weapon from his hands with a line of webbing and threw it on the ground.

"Stop! Stop!" Devin shouted as the man advanced. "Give me a chance! Just give me a chance!"

The masked man said nothing, but swung a hard punch into the side of Devin's face and knocked him to the ground.

"Please! Please!" Devin cried.

The masked man swung his hard foot into Devin's fore head and blood flew onto the ground. Peter, the masked man, raised his fist to finish the job but then…

"Please don't kill me…" Devin groaned, his voice weak and insignificant. "Please don't kill me…. Please don't kill me…"

"Why shouldn't I? You killed my Uncle!" Peter exclaimed, smashing a window by chucking a brick at it, in his anger.

"You're Uncle? How-How old are you?" Devin asked weakly, wiping the blood from his face.

Peter then progressed to pick Devin up by his throat. "I said give me a reason not to kill you."

"You-you don't even sound old enough to-" Devin paused to take in a breath. "to be doing this sort of thing."

Angrily, Peter held Devin outside of the broken window, the wind blowing blood from the mans face and down to the ground. Then Peter saw police cars outside the gates and a couple of police men examining the crashed car, while a group of others began running to the building.

"Give me a reason." Peter repeated.

"If you- If you kill me you'll just be another Frank Castle," Devin breathed. "another low life vigilante with everyone in the world on your back."

Peter hesitated. "I should kill you for what you've done."

"Then do it, but you'll be- you'll be no better than me…"

Peter released Devin. And Devin fell. However, inches away from the ground, Devin came to a halt and began to bounce in mid air as a line of webbing attached itself to his back. Devin looked up to Peter and Peter looked down to him. Peter fired a web to the edge of the building, out the window and jumped down. He swung all the way up and kicked off far into the distance before the police even knew he was there.

-**11:30pm, The Parker House**-

Peter opened the door slowly, his mask, sunglasses, trench coat and gloves all shoved into his bag. He wore his hood up as he snuck in and instantly moved into the kitchen, quietly. However he found Aunt May there, sitting with her head in her hands.

"Where have you been, Peter?" She asked quietly.

"Out."

"Out where?"

"You know," Peter held his head down, he could barely look at her. "just around the neighbourhood."

Aunt May stood up and looked directly at Peter. "You know the school phoned, and your friends did," She spoke louder now. "and I had to lie for you because I had no idea where you were!"

"I'm sorry, Aunt May," Peter shook his head as he spoke. "I'm just going to go to sleep and I'll, ur, make up for it in the morning."  
"You will not, now turn around and look at me!"

Peter stopped in the door way. He hesitated. Finally he turned around, his hood still up.

"Look at me Peter." Aunt May said.

Peter raised his head slightly.

"Take down the hood and look at me!"

Peter bought down his hood, quickly and looked up with his bruised face. A series of small cuts lined his right cheek and a couple of bruises surrounded his eye and ear on the left side. His hair was filled with grit, dust and dirt and was all over the place. Aunt May said nothing. She took a couple of small steps back and retreated into her chair again.

"Peter-" She didn't know what to say.

Peter said nothing more, he pulled his hood back up and marched away upstairs, leaving Aunt May to weep alone.


End file.
